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My company currently has an internal linux server ( Centos 5.7 ) that runs an internal website ( PHP/Apache ) for internal work. One thing that has been a bit of a problem is creating print jobs. We have a wide array of printers anywhere from HP LaserJets to STAR label printers. What is the best way to manage these shares? I have read somewhere about creating a Printer Server?

Notes
-Not all printers have the ability to be networked
-I found a program in linux ( wkhtmltopdf ) to convert HTML/CSS into a PDF and then use LPR to send these print jobs to printers.

Currently
we currently use two methods.

  1. We use software called Connectship ( On Windows Server 2008 ) to control packages we ship. It prints label stickers for UPS but we also found it has the ability to send print jobs to any printer that is shared on that server. Their XML formatting is awful and creating routine print jobs is tough because it is not in HTML/CSS but in some strange format they created. Also Managing a bunch of printers on this server seems clunky and unreliable at times

  2. We convert HTML/CSS into PDF and use LPR to print. I tested this out a few weeks ago but only for an HP LaserJet ( Worked Great btw ). Can Linux print to any printer just like windows? I am not familiar with how Linux handles drivers so I was not sure if there would be any drawbacks to handle printing solely on my linux Server. I manually added the printers through the GUI but I was not sure if it makes more sense to create a server dedicated to sharing printers ( If that is what people do? )...

Robert
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1 Answers1

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You don't have to have a dedicated printer server, but you could set up one on the server that is hosting the internal website.
1) Add all network printers in CentOS 5.7 cups by ip as shareable
2)non-network printers needs to be added as shareable in client computers(assume you have win xp on this ones or linux-it works with a lot of os's)
3) add in the CentOS 5.7 the printers throw the client address
*for example I have a printer connected throw usb on a xp that has the internal ip of 192.168.0.247 the printer name on this xp is kc2 so the printer address on my server is : smb://192.168.0.247/kc2
*I also have some linux clients example ip 192.168.0.99 that has the printer called kc6 set up in cups so the address I add in the server is http://192.168.0.99:631/printers/kc6 (the printer address in on that computer)

That 's it. You add each computer with it's driver, normally you shoudan't have issues with any printer driver but exceptions exist. I invite you to read some info about cups and how to set up your printers to handle errors and other things

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jnhghy - Alexandru Jantea
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